Adding my 2 cents to this comversation:
> On Monday, July 14, 1997 6:20 PM, William J. Hobler, Jr wrote:
> > >I do not understand the relevance of the debate about motivation being
> > >internal or external. I do not see the relevance to a team leader or
> > >manager. What mangers need to know is how to obtain the behavior in the
> > >best interest of the organization.
> >
On Saturday, July 19, Mike Jay wrote:
>
> There is an obvious ideal quality to intrinsic motivation, it probably is
> self-sustaining, yet it has been proven in real practice by probably
> almost every member of this list, that effectiveness can be derived
> through extrinsic rewards. I'm not saying it is the right thing to do and
> I am not saying that extrinsic rewards always work (especially in the long
> term), but if you fail to take advantage of extrinsic motivation IN THE
> MEANTIME, you may not be around for the LONG TERM!
I read Kohn's main concern about extrinsic motivation to be that it
EXTINGUISHES intrinsic motivation. E.g. if an employee enjoys making
customers happy, then is put on a bonus system based on customer
satisfaction ratings, that employee will be likely to lose interest in
pleasing customers for its own sake. To me, this is the main reason why
managers need to understand the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation--so that they can avoid producing unintended consequences.
Lee Holmer
Seattle University Institute of Public Service
--Lee Holmer <llh@seattleu.edu>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>